$520,000 for $485

Pious Spaniards have long believed that few if any unbelievers are keen enough to outsmart a Jesuit. Last week their belief became a profound conviction. A Madrid court was asked to believe that in 1931 the Spanish Jesuits sold their $520,000 national headquarters in Madrid for $485 to a pious U. S. sculptor named Edmundo Quatrocchi whose principal achievement was the actual carving on Sculptor Frederick MacMonnies' monument in France commemorating the Battle of the Marne. If this was indeed a sale, the Spanish Republic's subsequent act in confiscating the Jesuit headquarters, under the impression that it still belonged to the outlawed Society of Jesus, was invalid and the property must be handed back to Mr. Quatrocchi. He was represented in Madrid last week by Lawyer Jose Maria Gil Robles, Spain's pious Minister of War.

Senor Gil Robles soon persuaded the court that a Government commission which protested the sale to Mr. Quatrocchi as a characteristic Jesuit subterfuge was in grievous error. The Jesuit fathers sold their $520,000 headquarters for $485, explained Lawyer Gil Robles smoothly, because it had been "damaged" by a Spanish mob.

Recently $455,000 worth of undamaged bonds which the Jesuit fathers also sold to Mr. Quatrocchi for a song were restored to him by the State, which had confiscated them from the Jesuits' depository in Spain's Banco Espanol de Credito. Walking off last week with the $520,000 worth of property plus the $455,000 worth of bonds, Sculptor Quatrocchi provided living proof that the Socialist Spanish Revolution is now slipping rapidly into Fascist Catholic Reaction, with fiery, spellbinding War Minister Gil Robles slated for an increasingly dominant role.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.